Redcaps in the mountains ambushed the PC's. One was a Barbarian unlucky enough to be...

1. the only real fighting class the group had.
2. injured from a pre-existing battle.

The redcaps took him down, the rest of the party was either severely wounded or fled mostly from the loss of their main fighter and bad rolls.

The rogue got revenge however...:D

rabkala

03-22-2010, 10:53 PM

My first death... not sure. I went through so many in the early years. Many died in bizarre Gygaxian dungeons of the DM's design. It was more a war game with minis in which the DM was allowed to cheat. Apparently, i was a contest we couldn't hope to win.

The first I remember hating was the isle of dread, a dinosaur swallowed me in one gulp. The first brought on by my own action was a druid who couldn't handle Bone hill who died trying to "Make love to a Tree". The first character I loved, was Truck3, a cleric who actually made it to third level!!!! Truck3 died At the hands of super* bugbears in the Search for the Unknown.
*(Super creatures had the HD exchanged for the AC, so a 3hd bugbear with an ac of 5 became a bugbear with 5 hd and an AC of 3 which was a good thing back then)

The first character I killed as a DM: Conan. A friend of mine (who loved the Conan books), KC, died at the hands of some made up jedi like snork creatures. His tears tasted so salty, I loved it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to kill his parents and make them into chili for him to eat. What a rush!

Nat_20

03-22-2010, 11:18 PM

haha first time i died was in the worlds largest dungeon, i was an aisimar(spelling?) favored soul, i got hit with like three heads from a frost hydra and due to a DM error it got to go twice before i could so i got hit with its frosty breath weapon and i turned into little red ice cubes on the dungeon floor...

First time i killed a PC was in expedition to castle ravenloft, our orc barbarian decided to eat the severed arm of some child, rolled a 1 on a fort save and turned into a zombie. my wood elf warlock hit a crit with a spiked chain hideous blow, basically wrapped around his head and blew it clean off as the DM put it...

Soft Serve

03-23-2010, 12:10 PM

haha first time i died was in the worlds largest dungeon, i was an aisimar(spelling?) favored soul, i got hit with like three heads from a frost hydra and due to a DM error it got to go twice before i could so i got hit with its frosty breath weapon and i turned into little red ice cubes on the dungeon floor...

First time i killed a PC was in expedition to castle ravenloft, our orc barbarian decided to eat the severed arm of some child, rolled a 1 on a fort save and turned into a zombie. my wood elf warlock hit a crit with a spiked chain hideous blow, basically wrapped around his head and blew it clean off as the DM put it...

Good job breaking the mold on PC murder! I thought it was a DMs job exclusively but you've shown me that other players can be just as effective!

Arch Lich Thoth-Amon

03-23-2010, 01:07 PM

My fighter was killed by a Carrien Crawler in B2, if memory serves. It came at me from the ceiling. From then on, i always stabbed the ceiling before entering any room. I did this for years, come to think of it. LOL

Arkhemedes

03-23-2010, 01:36 PM

It's been so long, that I'm not sure about this. But I think my first character to die was an evil half-orc fighter/assassin that was decapitated by a fellow PC with a vorpal sword.

The first character I ever killed as a DM? This one, I'm even foggier on. But it may have been in the Tomb of Horrors where all but a couple of characters died. Or it could have been in the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, where again all but a couple of characters died.

Soft Serve

03-23-2010, 01:36 PM

My first death as a player was in an adventure where we ran from a Cadaver Collector (MM3) and had to jump a 10x10 ft pit. There were 4 of us and the two in front of me and my friend forgot about the pit until they got to the lip of it. They backed up to gain running speed and in turn held us back against the Cadaver collector. The CC grabbed my friend next to me and skewered him onto his back as they do, and my other two allies made it across the pit. I got my running start but fell just short of the edge and fell straight in. The damage was 5d6 (which incapped me) long enough for the CC to walk back downstairs and spike me which finished me off....

cplmac

03-23-2010, 07:51 PM

In my DMing of the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, I have managed to kill 2 characters. The first was a NPC fighter that I put at the entrance of the Caverns, just to see what the players would do. Since the clerics healed his wounds and they gave him some food and water, I rewarded them with allowing the NPC to go with them into the caverns. He met his demise at the "hands" of the Clay Golem that was on the upper level of the caverns.

The second was an extra character that we made since we had 9 players and the module only comes with 8 pregen. characters. Veda the mage was taken to negative hit points by Drelnza when the party finally found its way into the center of the lower caverns. They were able to revive Veda with a scroll, but waited until the last possible day. They wanted to be as far as possible from the caverns when the scroll was used. Didn't want to take a chance at there being some weird enchantment that would let Drelnza actually recieve the healing instead. They would have used the scroll to heal the NPC, but the damage that was inflicted by the Clay Golem took the character way past -10 hit points.

Nat_20

03-24-2010, 03:56 AM

Good job breaking the mold on PC murder! I thought it was a DMs job exclusively but you've shown me that other players can be just as effective!

HAHA, i was proud

wbrandel

03-24-2010, 11:46 AM

My first death as a player was at the hands of my evil DM Nolan. I was playing a fighter (human) and managed to get him to about 9th level before we faced a mind flayer. The last words my character heard was "Higher intelligence is tastier, oh well"
My fighter had a 7 Intelligence.
The first PC death when I as a DM was in a home brew adventure. It was the cleric that was killed at third level by a whip wielding maniac. The whip wrapped around the cleric's neck and due to prior battles the whip took the cleric down to negative HP (it was magical). Another player when she heard that cried out "Oh cool, a pez head!" Ahh, good times. These games were AD&D back in the early 80's

Soft Serve

03-24-2010, 12:55 PM

Illithids aren't too picky. :)

I have yet to include a Whip Wielding Menace in my games but we've had a spiked chain assassin so almost there...

cigamnogard

03-24-2010, 06:24 PM

First death of a character - hmmmm...Most of my campaigns ended with the DM getting bored so I have few fatalaties. However, the first and the most frustrating was when I was playing in a campaign where magic had been removed and the gods had come to earth and were mortal. My character battled a god and lost. Why? My character was not allowed to use his dirty fighting feat and the god chaacter had only two hit points left...
First DM kill - has yet to happen actually.

tesral

03-25-2010, 01:30 AM

Remember? Oh hell no. That was the dark ages.

Soft Serve

03-25-2010, 09:04 AM

Remember? Oh hell no. That was the dark ages.

ROFL! Furthest back then?

Philonous

03-28-2010, 02:46 PM

My first death was a death knight named lord Enix. (we were all teenagers and liked playing overly powerful characters). I had attempted to steal another player's Lich's phylactery in order to gain control over him. In retaliation he teleported to waterdeep, and disguised as a do good priest, told several high ranked paladines of my where abouts resulting in them riding out to hunt Me down. I was captured and dragged back to waterdeep where my arms and legs were cut off and torso thrown into the city fountain. My name was declared to no longer be lord enix and was changed to "bob".

Technically not a death, since he just remained there "bobbing" in the fountain, but the first character I lost and was unable to continue on with.

Soft Serve

03-28-2010, 03:00 PM

...So he's still there?

tesral

03-28-2010, 05:36 PM

Remind me to never drink from that fountain.

cigamnogard

03-28-2010, 06:26 PM

Hee hee - I have a plan for "bob"

Philonous

03-28-2010, 10:27 PM

...So he's still there?

I'm guessing he is. That game was about 17 years ago so he's probably looking a lot worse (and smelling worse) then he did before they tossed him in there. There's going to have to be some fortitude saves if anyone was interested in investigating.

R3zippo

07-16-2010, 04:28 PM

My first death was one i will never forget. I was a halfling wizard, and the party i was in was given the quest to find a chest that was taken by a thief. When the party finally found him we then found out that it was given to a Black Wyrm. Being the hero-ish group we decided that we needed to get the chest no matter what. After three weeks of searching we found the cave of said wyrm. As we adventured we found out that the cave lead into an old dwarven city that the wyrm took over by eating all of the dwraves. Needless to say we finaly made our way thought the maze like city untill we came to a large door. Everyone made a listen check and the fighter and ranger heard the wyrm on the other side. I being the lowest level and being a wizard took refuge around the corner so i could have some sheilding. So, then the fighter kicked i nthe door and that only made the wyrm mad. He lifted his head and opened his mouth to unlish his breath weapon. The DM told everyone to make a Reflex save to see who got hit. I made mention that i was around the corner, and he gave me a +5 cover bonus. Everyone else rolled, they all passed well over the reflex that was required. I rolled, and low and behold i saw 1. He looked at me, and told the rest of the party that as they dodged the wave of acid, they saw my halfling wizard pop his head around the corner. And when the wave passed all that was left of my body was my staff, and half of a melted spell book. While it sucked because this was also my first ime playing D&D, it has been the best death i have ever seen/experanced in my years of playing.

As a side note

i was a lvl 3 Halfling Wizard

there was also a

Lvl 10 Human Fighter

Lvl 15 Elven Ranger (Bow)

Lvl 7 Gnome Rogue

and a Lvl 11 Dwarf Cleric.

KananMN

07-20-2010, 03:41 PM

Most epic death I ever had as a character had to've been my drow ranger/necro from 2nd edition. I always rolled lousy on his hps, so he was deadly as hell, but fairly fragile, so when he popped the anti-magic shell because we couldn't find the annoying GIT zapping as us and found em (was just him and some cowardly player left iirc), he was getting ground down by them tag teaming them. Dropped the AM shell, kilt the GIT with a Cone of Cold to the face and then the next round happened.. the GIT's high level mage girlfriend cast disintegrate.. only needed like a 3 or 4 to make the save.. given my history with lousy rolls on him, I sighed, rolled the dice and was unsurprised to see a 2 facing me. Yeah.. I'd spent better part of a year's worth of weekends on him over the previous few years, getting deadly, accumulating toys (he had the world's best walking stick - a staff of the woodlands), etc.. all to see em go poof in a single, typically lousy roll.

InvestFDC

07-20-2010, 04:12 PM

As a DM, I had a white dragon freeze the party's Druid (their fault for having a Druid in the party) with a breath weapon and the other 4 members had to use said Druid as a raft to navigate the underground river to freedom. Luckily they were next to the stream when the ice hit.

cigamnogard

07-20-2010, 08:00 PM

Sorry - what's wrong with druids?

Soft Serve

07-20-2010, 08:57 PM

As a DM, I had a white dragon freeze the party's Druid (their fault for having a Druid in the party) with a breath weapon and the other 4 members had to use said Druid as a raft to navigate the underground river to freedom. Luckily they were next to the stream when the ice hit.

I don't think the druid would float...

Nevermind actually since my ice always floats to the top of my drink.

Malruhn

07-26-2010, 03:27 PM

I started with Basic D&D - and TPK's were the norm. We could go through four or five PARTIES in one sitting.

Hey, the encounter tables listed things like 1d4x100 orcs... and that's what we did.

I never said we were smart...

tesral

07-26-2010, 04:22 PM

I started with Basic D&D - and TPK's were the norm. We could go through four or five PARTIES in one sitting.

Hey, the encounter tables listed things like 1d4x100 orcs... and that's what we did.

I never said we were smart...

"You take the thousand on the right I'll take the thousand on the left." -- Allen Quartermain;: King Solomon's Mines (1985)

Soft Serve

07-30-2010, 12:03 PM

pfft can't even take on 1d4x100 orcs.

AD&D feels like a mystic and forgotten age to me, having come in for 3.5. But I think if I would have seen 1d4x100 orcs I would have changed some things.

Arch Lich Thoth-Amon

07-30-2010, 01:22 PM

I remember 1d4x100 orcs being off in the distance. We ran! It wasn't a hard decision. Ah, i miss the old days when are characters had ability scores of 6-14, and where there was no forgiveness for stupid decisions. I realize the newer dnd crowd may not understand, but tesral, Malruhn and I had perhaps our best memories of dnd play in those times. There's something about knowing you're not a superhero or immortal that really gets a player to bond with his or her character... that and we didn't level every 1-2 modules. Oh, how i hate that - don't even get me started.

Good times!

Malruhn

07-30-2010, 01:54 PM

The problem was that the numbers were for DUNGEON encounters. BAM!!! You kick in the door to the 10x10 room and find... (dice rolling) 300 orcs!

And we never questioned the physics of it. We knew that every orc would have 1d4 silver and 2d10 copper pieces. I never once heard of a character living to 5th level.

It may have been magical, but I have enjoyed getting beyond those times... even if it's to reintroduce players to the "you are not an immortal superhero" attitude.

Maybe that's what I like the best.

Arch Lich Thoth-Amon

07-30-2010, 02:06 PM

The difficulty i did love for it taught players to think outside the box, and outside the box we played. That being said, you're right about unreasonable numbers in a confined space. The physics was goofy at times, no question, so we usually altered it a bit to make it - at least somewhat - more reasonable.

Nowadays, my games are just as hard, but doable if players learned to play smart. What i left beind was the bad physics of old dnd. Good memories, and i agree with you, Malruhn, leaving the bad physics in yesteryear was a necessary evil.

The old-schoolers secret formula for game success:

Your are not an immortal (-) bad physics (=) great and memorable gaming.

tesral

07-30-2010, 03:23 PM

I remember 1d4x100 orcs being off in the distance. We ran! It wasn't a hard decision. Ah, i miss the old days when are characters had ability scores of 6-14, and where there was no forgiveness for stupid decisions. I realize the newer dnd crowd may not understand, but tesral, Malruhn and I had perhaps our best memories of dnd play in those times. There's something about knowing you're not a superhero or immortal that really gets a player to bond with his or her character... that and we didn't level every 1-2 modules. Oh, how i hate that - don't even get me started.

Good times!

Get yer cane off my rocking chair. I need to set down.

The problem was that the numbers were for DUNGEON encounters. BAM!!! You kick in the door to the 10x10 room and find... (dice rolling) 300 orcs!

And we never questioned the physics of it. We knew that every orc would have 1d4 silver and 2d10 copper pieces. I never once heard of a character living to 5th level.

Actually I did question the physics. That is the essence of Old School; realizing when the rules or rolls are stupid and adjusting. "The box" as it was sucked. You played outside same because inside was deep and dark shade of stupid at times.

The most valuable GM tool that Old School teaches is the Instant Authoritative Answer™; Rulings not rules. Anything is possible.

Arch Lich Thoth-Amon

07-30-2010, 03:53 PM

The most valuable GM tool that Old School teaches is the Instant Authoritative Answer™; Rulings not rules. Anything is possible.

Wow! Nicely stated, tesral.

Soft Serve

08-02-2010, 09:22 PM

Maybe if 3.5 Characters were easier to make they would have more lethality.

TheYeti1775

08-03-2010, 03:44 PM

First Death Ever:
Human Fighter killed by Bargle's Magic Missile after he killed the Cleric Aleena.
Second Death:
Goblins in the same dungeon of the Red Box.

First 3E Death:
Theo, Human, Wizard 1 / Rogue 2.
Clearing a Tower of Rats. When Splinter the Ninja Rat came out of nowhere having survived the Burning Hands of the room to proceed to rip out poor Theo's thoart with a Triple 20. We played the house rule of Triple 20 being an instant kill at the time. It took the party 6 more rounds to defeat Splinter the Ninja Rat.
Theo went on in life to 3 more glorious death's in wierd ways and raised each time. The party kept bringing him back, each time he was more haunted by his experiences.

First Killing as a DM:
In the Caves of Chaos (B2 module), a random encounter with bandits I got my first player character kill.

Soft Serve

08-03-2010, 09:36 PM

Triple 20 as an instant kill would destroy my players. I don't know what it is about me but when I roll one nat20 another one is usually on it's way. Once in a game I played DM/DMPC and had a creature and my character roll 20's on init, the tiebreaker were both 20's so my character having highest dex went first, then my first roll was a nat20 critical on the creature which dealt more than 50 damage forcing it to make a Fortitude save vs. Instant death, which it passed, with a nat20.

bigandscary

08-05-2010, 12:23 AM

I was trying to think of my first deaths in both AD&D and in 3.0/3.5, and I realized that they were both by other PCs. I've had three characters killed by dragons, 4 others in miscellaneous battle,(all but 1 of those 7 were in AD&D) and all my other deaths, probably about 20-25, were from my teammates.
That's what I miss about AD&D. You had a Thief in your party because you needed one, but if you ever trusted him with anything it was your own fault what happened next.

Soft Serve

08-05-2010, 10:20 PM

Why they changed the name to "Rogue" I guess. :D

Arch Lich Thoth-Amon

08-06-2010, 12:02 AM

Ah, how i miss the old non-pc days.

tesral

08-06-2010, 02:22 AM

Less PC I think than to broadening how people think of the class. Not Every rouge steals. However that is the definition of a thief.

Arch Lich Thoth-Amon

08-06-2010, 02:39 AM

Thieves can be assassins, and assassins can be thieves. Of course, so can scouts, spies, fighters, magic users, etc. I never limited a character based on its class. In fact, I've never known anyone that did in my 30 years of gaming, in point of fact.

Truth be told, and based on perspective, all characters steal. Some just rationalize why its not called stealing.

Soft Serve

08-06-2010, 06:51 AM

Thieves can be assassins, and assassins can be thieves. Of course, so can scouts, spies, fighters, magic users, etc. I never limited a character based on its class. In fact, I've never known anyone that did in my 30 years of gaming, in point of fact.

Truth be told, and based on perspective, all characters steal. Some just rationalize why its not called stealing.

Usually that involves the word "loot" I'm sure...

Arch Lich Thoth-Amon

08-06-2010, 09:56 AM

Usually that involves the word "loot" I'm sure...

Loot, spoils, & booty, oh my!

Actually, due to player experience (me), my characters are typically fearful of ships...having had so much bad luck at sea. Last sea adventure our party had was on the Glimmersea. Near tpk due to an attack by a Kraken, Gobbah's, and Kua toa's. So sucked. I will say this, the battle was epic and memorable. There was plenty of blood in the water before the battle was over. Worthy of inclusion in a bardic song, no doubt.

Soft Serve

08-09-2010, 10:23 AM

I had a Kraken assault a players ship so hard they crashed it into a reef to get away. When that didn't work they prayed for divine intervention...

The group has two dieties. The Shadow from Eberron and Pelor I think. Pelor sent a champion which killed it, the Shadow filled it with candy and tried to force the groups paladin to support him. When the paladin refused he turned his Horse into a Sea Slug and told him to ride back to land.

(This all happened because of 2 nat20's. I would have never had the gods interfere or fill it with candy otherwise, I promise.)

Arch Lich Thoth-Amon

08-09-2010, 12:36 PM

I had a giant toad suck down a player once at the marshes of the Glimmersea. Lets just say that the party gave giant toad respect from then on.

Soft Serve

08-10-2010, 03:33 PM

In the form of licking smaller toads? Is the Glimmersea near Quahog?

Crom on his Mountain

08-14-2010, 09:41 PM

My first character death was a murder at the hands of my father's character if you can believe it. Our party just came into possession of a powerful evil artifact so he and another evil character killed off the rest of the party in their sleep. He buried my character up to his neck in the sand and let the tide come in.

Kind of a dick move to pull on a 10 year old who'd only been playing for a couple of months, but at least it provided evidence as to why mixed alignment parties should never be allowed.

Arch Lich Thoth-Amon

08-14-2010, 09:48 PM

By Crom, that's awesome. I love playing with folks that know no boundaries. Simply awesome!

My first character death was a murder at the hands of my father's character if you can believe it. Our party just came into possession of a powerful evil artifact so he and another evil character killed off the rest of the party in their sleep. He buried my character up to his neck in the sand and let the tide come in.

Kind of a dick move to pull on a 10 year old who'd only been playing for a couple of months, but at least it provided evidence as to why mixed alignment parties should never be allowed.

Your father can sit at my gaming table, anytime.

rurikjapa

09-12-2010, 02:25 AM

My first death as a player, hmmm....

2E: human sorceror-9/ priest-9 fried by ancient blue dragons breath, raised and made an avatar of his God (had to fork over my character sheet - great story), mostly to keep the powerful artifact gauntlet in the hoard out of the greedy hands of our party's four-armed dwarven psionicist-fighter (he referred to my the sorceror as "The Great Betrayer" both in-character and out-, because I refused to fork over the gauntlet)

RIFTS game, our human City Rat had been bitten and turned into a vampire and even though the GM had ASSURED him that nothing would happen to his character when he was absent the next session, when I drunkenly announced that my troll raider would "free my buddy from this curse" (yeah, we drank during games back in the day), the GM said "OK, roll", needless to say the chained vampire couldn't avoid my silver-plated vibrosword, at which point the GM handed me his phone and said "Here, you call him and tell him what you did". What a douche nozzle (same guy tried to steal another players commemorative 5-sided die... twice in the same 10 minutes).

I have never killed a PC, some have been written out when the players leave the table, a couple of players have decided to switch characters mid-campaign, but I don't intentionally wipe them out.